Abstract

For a given set of n rectangles place on a plane, we consider a problem of finding the minimum area layout of the rectangles that avoids intersections of the rectangles and preserves the orthogonal order. Misue et al. proposed an O(n²)-time heuristic algorithm for the problem. We first show that the corresponding decision problem for this problem is NP-complete. We also present an O(n²)-time heuristic algorithm for the problem that finds a layout with smaller area than Misue's.